My Two Cents

by Dave Norfleet-Vilaro

When this covid thing isn’t a thing, I’ll meet you out for dinner

I’ll kiss you hello and hug you goodbye and sit real close in Winter

I’ll not wear a mask and not scrub my wrists and you’ll be none the wiser

‘Cause you’ll scandalously cough out loud and skip hand sanitizer.

 
When this covid thing isn’t a thing, I’ll meet you out for coffee

We’ll share one snack and laugh real loud and grandstand like Gaddafi

We’ll double dip and triple sip and others will not shame us

We’ll take up space and touch our face and no one there will blame us.

When this covid thing isn’t a thing, we’ll get back to our living

We’ll share the air without a care and celebrate the giving

The world will cheer when someone near lets out a sneeze or two

And when this covid thing isn’t a thing, the hug I want is from you.

So your “orthopedist” says you have to cut back on “running”? Here’s what’s going to happen in your brain and here’s why it may not be as bad as you expect.

First, you know that the high some people get from “running” is the same high others get from coffee (or heroine or lying or eating deodorant). If you’ve seen a lab rat pawing a lever to get a few drops of payoff punch, you’ve seen what a human does for an extra dose of dopamine. It hits your happy button and you don’t care beyond that.

Your dopamine receptors are satisfied or they’re not. An action like running (or spray painting your sinuses) presses your happy button or it doesn’t. The quantity necessary to fully press the button or how long the button stays pressed may vary, but your primitive dashboard isn’t concerned with degrees. It just shows “Pressed” or “Needs pressing NOW”.

The down side to running less (or playing less FortNite or taking fewer tabasco enemas) is that your happy button is not going to be pressed as much as you’d like. But guess what? You’re already accustomed to that sensation. Everyone is. No ones happy button is pressed all the time so every human is equipped to deal with an unpressed happy button.

More good news is that a happy button not pressed for three minutes is just as unpressed as one not pressed for three days. Your brain will do its best to convince you otherwise, but a not pressed button is a not pressed button.

Once you’ve dealt with the initial change in frequency or duration of happy button pressing, you’ve won a huge battle in the war to cut back on running (or ingesting broken glass or instagramming your poop).

So if it’s time to cut back on the miles you run (or the chalk you snort or the happy pills you pop), give it a go and see if you can enjoy some part of the journey. There will certainly be days or hours you don’t like and seasons that are bleak. But remember they will pass and that a smoother road is ahead.

If you know the downward spiral of needing more and more running (or ash sniffing or urine cocktail drinking) to press your dopamine button, you already know how to make it an upward spiral! Less and less running (or shopping or fast driving) and your button still isn’t pressed, but you are quipped to handle it. And when you’ve distanced yourself a little from the dopamine frenzy, you learn to find calm and contentment without needing to constantly smash the dopamine button. You learn to run (or paint or sip) on your own terms. You learn to live with more freedom.

Just now, this may seem impossible. Maybe the path to a happy place with no happy button seems too long. But now you know the length of the path is not really important. Color me cliche, but the important part of the path is the first step.

Ready? Set? Step!

Why the power of saying no to your favorite food may make you fat.

 

I love nature shows. Watching a pack of hungry wolves chase their dinner makes my heart beat faster. Seeing them tear the little rabbit into tasty little morsels makes my stomach growl. Just the thought of chowing down on prized prey stirs my primitive instinct to feed.

 

Watching a swarm of suburbanites at an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet has the same effect. Beyond the crowd’s hotplate etiquette (and impressive waistlines), I see a pack of wolves about to devour the warm flesh of their kill. Freed from social norms or moral values, possessing a portion of pizza flesh becomes the very foundation of their Maslovian pyramid.

 

But the parallels breaks down when it comes to frenzy frequency. A pack of wolves makes a kill about every 4 days, but the pepperoni and sausage special which is the endgame of the other pack makes its way into the buffet rotation every 14 minutes. Waistline, we have a problem.

 

When the rabbit flesh has been devoured by the wolves, the game ends. A wolf’s greedy appetite can only lead to a small deviation from median carnage intake, but in the battle of the pizza buffet, there is no end to the spoils of war. Any warrior willing to invest 45 seconds standing in line can score another carcass of simple carbs and saturated fat. See the problem?

 

I typically lose the desire to fight for another serving somewhere around slice #3, but old habits, herd mentality and a deeply seeded need to get the most of the $5.99 entrance fee propels me easily through slice #11. What if I stopped at the point that I’d no longer fight for another bite?

 

Maybe the battle with the scale is not won by saying no, but by saying enough.

 

The taming of hunger hormones is the latest frontier in weight control. Could the hormones that ebb and flow during the wolf’s feeding frenzy be the same as those at play in the swarm of pizza buf-foodies?

 

Leptin, Ghrelin and Cortisol are three dancers in our body’s hormone hustle that regulate hunger, metabolism and mood. Research and theories abound, but productive guidelines are hard to find. I suspect an answer to making better decisions about what and when to eat is lurking on the ESP to PhD continuum.

 

It’s helpful to keep in mind that if all of human existence were represented by the last 24 hours, only in the last few minutes have we had any choice about when or what to eat. Our hunter gatherer ancestors simply ate food when it was present and stopped when it was gone. A caveman’s trim waistline was not a result of “being present” when eating food, but rather eating when food was present.

 

How can we use the hormone hustle to our advantage?

 

Mind Over Milkshake: How Your Thoughts Fool Your Stomach presents an entertaining experiment which demonstrates how Ghrelin levels are affected not only by the food eaten but also by the food’s perceived value. Ghrelin is affected not just by eating the slice of pizza, but it’s predicted ability to satisfy. Our gut’s trusty Ghrelin meter jumps up and down with joy each time a morsel of our beloved “kill” enters our mind and mouth.

 

Saying no is not the key. Saying enough is the holy grail.

 

Dolly Parton said, “I tried every diet in the book. I tried some that weren’t in the book. I tried eating the book. It tasted better than most of the diets.” Snacking on “feel full” bars (or diet books) gets the same response as when a wolf surfaces with a mouth full of rabbit hair. It may result in a lot of chewing, but it does nothing to satisfy hunger or reduce Ghrelin.

 

The relationship with Ghrelin and metabolism is why saying no to our favorite treats is not helpful in reaching or maintaining a healthy weight. When Ghrelin levels rise and stay there – prize prey is in our mind but not our mouth – our hearty metabolism fades. Each time we deprive ourselves of prized prey, our metabolic rate decreases and we gain weight. But each time we eat more than a healthy portion of prize prey, caloric intake exceeds our healthy metabolic rate and we gain weight.

 

If you think this presents an impossible mission, you’re wrong. It’s like bowling. Most of the battle is won by just staying out of the gutters.

 

Maintaining your desired weight is a matter of avoiding the extremes. Keep your metabolism at a healthy level by regularly (yes, even daily!) saying yes to your prize prey, but keep the caloric intake at a reasonable level by saying enough when you’ve had enough.

 

The next time I’m at a pizza buffet, I’ll remind myself that a wolf can be satisfied by just a few chunks of warm rabbit flesh. For me, the third slice is a charm. A little prize prey goes a long way. It’s so easy, maybe you should give it a try.

If you wouldn’t fight for your next bite, it’s not so tough. Just say enough.

Associated Pressssss

 

This new wonder drug, discovered by Westchester County Neuro-Geek, Dave Norfleet-Vilaro, has been found “radically effective” in treating many of Twitter’s top trending syndromes and disorders. Even if you’ve never heard of any of the diseases cured by the revolutionary drug, over 80% of Westchester residents report, “I must have that one too”, while skimming the list of diseases and symptoms.

 

“Clinical trials” which lead to the discovery of PROFEN (pro-FEEN), conducted by Mr. Norfleet-Vilaro, used the scientific method of casual observation on about seven people for around three weeks.

 

This miracle drug has been “scientifically suspected” to restore energy, reduce pain, boost mood and lessen the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

The shocking discovery revealed that when administered properly, the wonder drug was effective in alleviating symptoms in more than five top trending syndromes and disorders which include:

 

• #OlwensDisorder – a neurological disorder which causes a slight to moderate delay in patient’s motion after being in a comfortable position for more than ten minutes.

• #OlniesSyndrome – a seemingly debilitating condition caused by slight to moderate discomfort in the area of and surrounding the patella. (“Clinical studies” show a strong correlation in the onset of Olnie’s Syndrome in patients with Olwen’s Disorder.

• #Olphaartitis – neurologicalish disease which prevents sufferer from doing anything they don’t want to do.

• #Pheimerbichslaptibiaosis – another seemingly debilitating condition caused by slight to moderate discomfort in the area of and surrounding the patella.

• #Pherstwhirldhedakeosis  – slight to moderate crainial discomfort which forces the cancellation of shopping, lunching or “taking care of” errands, pets or kids.

All the above diseases respond well to PROFEN resulting in the cessation of symptoms, temporary remission of the alleged disease/syndrome/condition and absence of the accompanying complaints and excuses.

 

“This guy’s a freakin’ Ponce de Leon”, claims easily impressed neighbor.

The surprisingly easy and inexpensive treatment method is most effective when used preemptively. Fortunately, the onset of the treatable symptoms can be easily predicted. The two most common triggers are “how I tried metabolic expenditure” (HITME) or ”boring entertainment at mealtime event (BEATME) anxiety prognostication disorders.

Having a ready supply of PROFEN is paramount to the success of the treatment plan. A few days before the expected onset of symptoms, prepare a two day supply of the wonder drug by scraping off the first three letters of several ibuprofen tablets. Then the day before onset, take 2 tablets every 6 hours to enjoy a symptom-free life thanks to the anti-inflammatory effects of a twenty year old generic drug and the miracle of the placebo effect.

 

“What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory–meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion–is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.”

― William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow

Since humans developed the ability to tell a story, the first telling of an event was the first changing of the event. The tale morphed, transformed ever so slightly, occasionally with intent to deceive, but usually just a fractional addition or subtraction to make the telling (or the teller) more interesting – more memorable.

With another telling would come another change or two. The teller’s inner fact checker was constantly shoved into the wings by the inner performer. After all, who doesn’t prefer an entertaining story to one that’s handicapped by reality?

So went storytelling for millions of years. Unencumbered by facts beyond immediate  observation, storytellers (or historians as they like to call themselves) could not successfully claim the sky was green today, but it was hard to refute its green-ness some time or place the listener had not been.

The ability to record stories imposed limits on the most creative history makers. A recorded story was frozen, fixed. I suspect many storytellers were not thrilled to have their stories documented, as their habit of leaving out or adding to the story became substantially more difficult. Story-creep lost a little power. Oral revisions are easy when compared to the hammer and chisel skills required to edit a cave drawing.

The ability of storytellers – from drama lovers to power hungry politicians – was dealt another setback by the printing press. The disruptive power of recording and distributing stories must have been a serious threat to those who sculpted history into self-serving shapes. As one version of history became fixed in print, the storyteller could no longer self-edit the story as they told it. As that version of the story was distributed to many, it was also fixed in many minds.

This subjected the story to cross examination and comparison. Imagine the frustration (and accountability!) politicians must have felt when they could no longer make a promise to one neighbor then promise the opposite to another neighbor.

Selective history morphing hit another roadblock with the digital age. Some compare the power of the digital revolution to bring information to the masses to that of the printing press. Both helped inform the masses and are amazing advances in information sharing. Although vastly different in expression and era, both applied the emergency brake to story-creep (conscious or otherwise) in a specular way. Once again, transparency and accountability must be unwelcome guests for those who have made of habit of carving the paths of history in the directions that serve them best.

We are now experiencing another transformation in the recording and dissemination of historical storytelling:

 

crowdsourcing – the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers

 

Thanks to crowdsourcing, a slice of history can now be recorded with text, photos and video; cross examined by masses and communicated to the world quicker than a caveman could choose his chisel. While I think it’s exciting to be a part of this transformation, not everyone is thrilled with the pace of technology.

What my kid can accomplish by tapping a tweet would seem like witchcraftery to my grandparents. And I know at least a few folks who think that emails are nothing but invitations to espionage. If you think technophobic tendencies like opposition to crowdsourcing is new, consider the Catholic Church’s response to the Gutenberg Bible.

(http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/educator/modules/gutenberg/books/legacy/)

As individuals and institutions increasingly utilize crowdsourcing techniques, I expect a healthy rise in accuracy, accountability and productivity. But based on history (or at least the version I’ve told myself) I wouldn’t be surprised by attempts to discredit or slow this transition by those who don’t understand it or fear its results.

I expect a natural divide on the issue based on familiarity and comfort with social media, as without its power, crowdsourcing could be a laborious process to an inferior result.

For those who put their faith in topic specialists and the glacially paced theories of academia, the notion of a peppy, crowdsourced decision by a large group of average people, must seem at least troubling and possibly anarchic.

To those who trust technology, enlisting specialists and consulting the educated elite seems unnecessary or may not be an option considering aggressive timetables and immediate expectations.

Ironically, the battlecry from both sides sounds the same: By giving everyone a voice in the matter, everyone will expect their voice to matter. Indeed.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles with warm woolen mittens

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things

Really? A drippy wet flower, a high maintenance cooking utensil and an anonymous package waiting to be swarmed by the airport bomb squad? These are someone’s favorite things?

They must be to someone, sometime. (And apparently to Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1959.) At least a few hundred million listeners over the last half century have found the list plausible, no matter how stupid I think it may be.

How a list of favorite things can be judged differently isn’t tough to understand. Finding middle ground on items of taste, style and personal grooming habits is possible. I hate dogs, you hate cats. No big deal, we’ll adopt a rat.

When differing opinions, however, involve the actions of one person that impact another, things get messy. Emotions erupt, entitlements are claimed, and suddenly my action seems overtly stupid to you, no matter how reasonable it seems to me.

How can perfectly reasonable people be such experts at doing perfectly unreasonable things? In other words, why do you think what I do is stupid? I believe assumed intent is the likely culprit. When we observe someone’s action, we assume their intent to be the same intent we would need to cause the same action. The same process is used when reverse engineering an app.

Reverse engineering an app re-creates the code (or script) responsible for the app’s action. It typically involves skill, guessing and luck. Reverse engineering the script of a predictable digital processor is tough, so assuming an accurate script of a human brain must be nearly impossible.

Nearly.

A good first step in reverse engineering an app is to identify and break down actions that repeat, then find the catalyst for the repetition. The result is a few lines of action code followed by a branch of logic.

Using this process on much of the repetitive human behavior I’ve observed, I come up with this generic, low-level script:

1. Get what I think I want.

2. Do I want what I’ve got?

3. if no then go back to step 1.

4. Enjoy life.

The logic of this script is prickly. If you don’t identify your wants until step #3, you’re liable to get stuck in an endless loop.

Now, may I introduce you to my friend John, the endless loop?

When John was a college senior, on the night of his 22nd birthday, he had way too much to drink and ended up having a hot time with a hot sophomore with a hot first name. He remembers his handsomeness and irresistibility rising exponentially with his increased blood alcohol level. He remembers how good it felt to be attractive. He remembers the pride he felt as he strutted from the bar with his bounty. That’s about all he remembers.

John is now a poorly preserved 59 year old workaholic who watches prime time TV at bars near college campuses. He thinks he wants to take home a hot sophomore, so he drinks. He imagines himself becoming more funny and handsome so he has another. He wants to be desired by the clutch of college age hotties across the bar so he has another.

John’s script has worked a few times since the first. Years ago it worked thanks to John’s collegiate youth. Now it occasionally works thanks to a stranger’s collegiate pity.

John thinks he wants to take home a sophomore. He lives the endless loop. If he would explore what he really wants, he would discover a desire to feel good and to be proud. But the further he teeters toward his sophomoric (literally and literarily) ambition, the further he gets from feeling good and being proud. Endless loop.

Socrates advised to “Know thyself.” That goes a long way to ending this loop. With it, the edited version of the low-level script becomes:

1. Find what you really want. “Know thyself.”

2. Don’t skip step #1. Struggle with it, if necessary.

3. Get what you want.

4. Enjoy life.

Am I a simpleton to think that finding contentment in life starts and ends with truly knowing what you want? Is every gulp of the alcoholic and every punch of the abuser and every curse of the offender and every [stupid act] of the [person who doesn’t know what they really want] just a wrong move at step one? An endless loop in the low-level script?

My best guess is yes.

I find myself increasingly surprised and annoyed by mostly sane people who won’t think for themselves. Do you really need a session with your ear-nose-throat specialist before you pick your nose? Is our hippocampus envy so severe that we can’t make basic decisions on our own?

It seems we’ve gone so soft in our decision-making capacity that we are unable to put one foot in front of the other without consulting an expert in walking. Of course you’ll need a follow up session to review the proud moment of motion.

There is no need to feel rushed since momentum in motion can lead to stumbling (and physics-defying feats of speed). And momentum in thought can lead to confusion (and life-changing flashes of brilliance).

I’m sure the decline of sober deciders didn’t happen overnight. Perhaps the increased accountability because of technology or the heightened fear of litigation has made everyone think twice before making a decision. Maybe thinking more than once is our downfall.

An interesting study on the timing of decision-making found the “outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 seconds before it enters awareness.” Is the ability to delay a decision long enough for a “second thought” short-circuiting our ability to make good decisions?

While the quickness of a decision may be part of the problem, I suspect another reason for our collective decision dulling is our habit of turning experts into celebrities. If I have to hear one more story about your world renowned, high priced, one step from God podiatrists, I may chop off your pinky toe so I can witness this divinity.

I was recently asked for advice on what to do about a sore calf muscle. My suggestion was to identify what recent activity had made it sore, and to consider refraining from that activity for a time. I thought it a cleverly cloaked punch line to the classic line, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.”

Even as I was delivering the line, I realized it was not going to be taken seriously. Without quoting a bold study that sacrificed the dignity of several humans and the lives of many mice, my two cents was not even worth that.

My common sense answer didn’t stand a chance of credibility without warranting a new high powered drug, a reference to an immutable DNA marker and a Hail Mary to the slightest probability of endocrinological culpability.

“You worked out too hard yesterday. Take a day off” has been demoted to the ranks of, “Nurse, this is serious. I’ll need my bucket of leeches”.

Before I go on, I must disclose a prejudice. I come from a long line of solid thinking folk who consider, “He has book smarts” to be synonymous with, “He’s dumb as a box of rocks.” I was taught that learning school room lessons prepares you for a school room but learning life lessons prepares you for life.

I try to maintain a healthy balance of common sense and book smarts. I am not terrified by a subject expert with an education level beyond fifth grade, and conversely, I also believe my mom can grow better tomatoes than most with a PhD in horticulture. As old fashioned as it may seem, I think you still need to have a look at the nut before you can choose a wrench.

Is it too much to ask that people step up their game of effective decision-making? I know every decision can’t be made by your gut in under two seconds, but a whole lot of them can. I also know that some decisions need collegiate consideration and glacially paced research, but most don’t.

Sometimes it’s OK to take your time, phone a friend or hire an expert. But sometimes the only expert you need is the expert that had the answer 10 seconds before you were aware of the question. Your gut. Your instinct. Your inner expert.

The next time you’re on the fence about which expert to consult, think about the hourly rate of your inner expert. But don’t think about it too long!

When my kid turned 2, the peer pressure to own a pet started mounting. His country cousins were rich with dogs, cats, cows and pigs with endless variations of inbreeding. Our tiny apartment had been home to a fish, but it jumped down a drain soon after we moved to Manhattan. Smart fish.

Adding a dog or cat to our small apartment seemed a bad idea. I often imagined a shortage of oxygen in the confined space and to add a normally aspirated animal would surely lead to the suffocation of something. If any of us suffered brain damage due to a greedy lung on four legs, I’d feel bad.

Other kids drag their rodent-like animals along the sidewalk. I assumed these leash weights to be dogs, although there was no resemblance to any real dog I’d ever seen. They could show up at feeding time of any zoo’s vermin room and get a full meal.

The fascination with these alleged pets was understandable. They were bred in designer colors, trained to sit quietly in a purse for hours with no food or water, and the scarcity of organic matter in their tiny bodies soothed the hypochondriallergic fears of the blog inspired supermoms.

My kid’s pet envy kept growing so I needed a creative solution. The idea of a starter pet seemed reasonable – something that would serve the purpose for now, but would be easy to dump when the real thing came along.

I’d known many people who bought starter houses or married started husbands, so the notion seemed sound. But animals with very short lifespans seemed high in maintenance or low on  bonding moments.

Then it happened. The answer to my pet dilemma was spelled out on a sign in the pet store window: Free Hamster (with purchase of a cage). My kid was about to get a lesson in responsibility and excrement cleanup that only a first pet can provide.

Since my kid’s physical strength had progressed faster than his ability to control it, I was quite certain that the hamster would last only a few days. A week at the most.

In his child-hulk fashion, he’d give the hamster a hug just as he became hypnotized by a passing fire truck. After the truck passed, he’d release the hamster hug and the competition for oxygen in our apartment would be over.

Perhaps he’d cry over the lost life but the sound of another fire truck would be a balm for his sadness. And there’s a firetruck every 90 seconds. What a fine pet plan.

Another possible hamster homicide would be hard to prevent, but easy to hide. Flushing the rodent down the toilet could cause a nasty clog. But I’d already discovered one of the thousands of “oh it must have been the kid” free passes when our toilet clogged a few weeks after moving in.

Before kids, a clogged toilet equaled certain embarrassment. No questions. But with a kid, the range of clogging object are endless. I could never make out much of what the handyman said, but “kid, car, clog” was easy to understand and I was more than happy to blame the one resident of our apartment who couldn’t provide a defense.

The last obstacle to bringing home the hamster were the enclosed heat radiators in our apartment. There were plenty of rodent sized spaces between the enclosure and the wall, but no access panels to remove a scorched hamster.

But a simple silence when the handyman showed up would lead him to the obvious conclusion that a rat had crawled from another apartment to its scalding final resting place. As long as I waited an hour or so, the site of a roasted hamster would be indistinguishable from any common toasted rodent.

My plan was set. I’d bring home the free hamster and let my kid enjoy it to death. Literally. Then when anyone suggested I was a bad parent because my kid didn’t have a pet, I’d recount the sad story of George the hamster. I’d wax nostalgic and pontificate about joy and learning life lessons while being extra vague on cause of death and lifespan. I’d tear up a little if necessary.

The real brilliance to my plan was that by saving the receipt and pointing out that the hamster was part of a “free with purchase” promotion, I could return the cage after the funeral. The whole shebang would cost nothing more than a trip back to the store and a few tears from a two year old, neither of which would be missed by next week.

Everything would have gone off as planned if it hadn’t have been for that tiny, unwelcome voice of conscience. Since my plan required the death of a fellow creature of the universe, I started to feel guilty. Would I have to abort my plan?

That war waged only a few seconds, as all this had taken place while I waited for the light to change in front of the pet store. As I crossed the street, I realized the sensation in my gut that I’d interpreted as a moral war was just hunger. As my eyes moved from the pet store sign to a neon ‘PIZZA’, the soul searching question morphed into “one slice or two”?